Category Archives: Books

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck is one of those books that can change one’s life in a short read. I’m so psyched about this book that I am re-posting my Amazon review here:

The idea of the book is that people who adopt a Growth mindset – believing they can learn to do better – achieve much more than people who think they only have whatever talents they came with.
I like to learn and started the book thinking it would affirm all my growth mindset goodness. From the detailed examples, I could see areas where I really was limiting myself with a fixed mindset.
Now I’ve tried to take more of a growth approach, and am learning more. Best of all, things that were previously drudgery for me are a little easier as I see them in a new light of building skills.
Also useful in the book are tips for parents / teachers / coaches on how to set children on the growth mindset early.
Good stuff! I highly recommend reading this book!

BackTesting Report helps you make rational investment and trading choices by giving you the results of rigorous testing of popular technical strategies. It gives you the data without all the effort of backtesting yourself.

Please share this report as you wish. You can email it, link to it, reprint it, or blog about it. Please also include a link back to www.backtestingreport.com and drop me a line so I can publish a link back to you. Thanks!

(This post and the associated document are licensed this under the Creative Commons License, Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ . I am the majority shareholder of Own Mountain Trading Company, the publisher of BackTesting Report. )

Here’s a free e-book on marketing that I found very interesting and inspiring. David Meerman Scott is really walking the talk of the World Wide Rave by giving this ebook excerpt away totally free, and making it easy to forward as I am doing now. This gives me a blueprint for making my BackTesting Report more accessible.

The New Rules of Marketing suggests using one’s middle name to stake a unique space on the web. I took note and now googling Jackie Ann Patterson brings me to the top of the list. I’m pretty happy about that. So when New Rules author David Meerman Scott posted a request for photos with the poster for his upcoming book, I was happy to take my new camera out for a spin. I took a walk down University Ave in Palo Alto, stopping at a few cool places along the way.

The Apple Store is not unique to Palo Alto, but its always busy especially during back-to-school season at nearby Stanford University. I have no idea who was in the blue coat reading the newspapers but he stayed oblivious the whole time I snapped pics.

Red Mango is a relatively new kid on the block. Their tart pom yogurt is my favorite, although I haven’t had a chance to sample their competitor in Korean fro yo, Pinkberry.

The next stop was beautifully restored Stanford theater which was running a Bogey double feature.

facebook headquarters sits back from the street down by the train station. The lobby guards were very accommodating as I got a quick shot to update my facebook profile.

I’m looking forward to reading World Wide Rave and learning more about using the web and social media.

In Sept 2005, I attended a week-long stock and commodity trading camp by Dr. Alexander Elder and Mr. David Weis on the island of Cyprus. I learned two vastly different methods of technical analysis for trading, plus money management and all-important trading psychology. The camp structure and side trips also helped me to meet other traders and create friendships that last to this day. This post in the Cyprus series focuses on the seminar itself.

That is the path of a most remarkable woman, Pearl Sofaer, who has come to be my neighbor. I got to meet her because I am around during the day, working from home. I was immediately struck by her positive attitude. You may be too when you read her memoir, Baghdad to Bombay – In the Kitchens of My Cousins. It chronicles her Jewish family’s flight from persecution in Iraq to growing up a British subject in India to ultimately alighting in the US. It also tells the stories of her cousins spread around the world and shares family recipes. Parts of the book remind me of one of my favorite college reading assignments: Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje of The English Patient fame.Continue reading →